Roses are red,

Homework is a bore,

Why do my kids wait to put the massive poetry project together

 the night before?

She knew it was coming,

and I did too.

Her sisters made the same mistake,

The night ends with boo – hoo.

Due in three weeks,

 she wrote hard for the first.

Then set it aside,

Oh Lord, we’ll be cursed.

I got back to the house

at 10 PM from a meeting,

the project was due in 10 hours,

was even too late for some cheating.

She wrote haiku, a couplet,

free verse and a sonnet,

Dad, get the glue out and the hole punch,

Although late, I was on it!

The writing was easy,

Putting it together was not.

A nice binder, and drawings,

The presentation, a lot.

With colored pencils, and crayons

And glue and some tape,

She worked and she worked,

Michelle was up really late.

And me, well I watched.

I coached from the side,

And picked up little round papers

from the hole punch til I thought I would die.

This is my last child

to learn from Mr. Nowak.

He has motivated my daughters

And taught them Shakespearean clack.